What Might Have Been
by JA Baker
Summary: John gets a glimpse at what his life could have been like if he hadn't been selected for the SPARTAN-II program


_It's all owned by 343-Industries/Microsoft_

**What Might Have Been**

A cool autumnal breeze blew down from the mountains, offering at least some relief to the rabble of survivors being herded onto the last few evacuation shuttles. Elysium City stood out against the dark in the distance behind them, bathed in flame as the Covenant bombarded it mercilessly from orbit, much as they were the rest of Eridanus II.

The UNSC and local militia forces had mounted the best defence they could, but it had always been a matter of time. Any time it even looked like they might win even a small victory on the ground, Covenant ships moved in and glassed the entire area. The fleet did everything they could, but they had too few ships to provide anything more than a token resistance while covering the civilians escaping to the surviving inner colonies. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before Eridanus II fell, just like dozens of worlds before it, as the UNSC traded space for time. The only hope the human race had was that the Covenant could be fought to a standstill before they ran out of worlds to sacrifice.

A crackle of distant gunfire spurned on the panicky civilians, and they almost stampeded until a lone figure strode down the shuttle's embarkation ramp, the assault rifle in its armour-clad arms looking like a child's tot in comparison. The UNSC had made the existence of the SPARTAN-II super soldiers public in a bid to boost moral, but security required that there was still little hard information on them. Speculation and guesswork filled in the blanks, and the mere sight of just one of them was enough to stop a near mob in its tracks. The SPARTAN stood, their face hidden behind their gold tinted visor, a bulwark against the gathering darkness, in more ways than one.

"Let's get these people on-board." Their voice was deep, like a rumble of distant thunder, "The _Constantinople_ is waiting for us, but they won't wait forever."

"You heard the man!" The shuttles co-pilot turned to address the crowd. "I want two lines, single file; one on the left, one on the right. Move back as far as you can before taking a seat, and get yourselves strapped in."

Ordered restored, the last few survivors began to make their way up the ramp again, heard turned in awe as the lone SPARTAN passed between the two lines, eyes wide in a mixture of awe and terror.

"This is Blue-One to Blue Team." Cutting his external speakers, the SPARTAN looked out towards the distant city, "SitRep."

"_This is Blue-Three._" A familiar voice responded from somewhere in the darkness, "_The last of the ODST's have pulled out; the Covenant own Elysium City. What's left of it, anyway._"

"Understood." There wasn't the slightest hint of emotion in the SPARTAN's voice, "Regroup with Blue-Two and pull back to the extraction point; Blue-Four will meet you there with a Pelican. Blue-One, out."

He stood, watching the distant city burn, as the civilians continued to file past him.

"John! John!" A voice, strange and familiar at the same time, shook him to his very core. He found himself turning to face the speaker as a flash of memory overcame him.

He was sat on the beach, meticulously building a sandcastle that, with his youthful pride, he felt sure would stand against the incoming tide. A pair of shuttles passed by, almost drowning out the voice calling his name. He turned to look at the dunes behind him, and memory merged with reality. She wasn't very tall, probably coming only to his shoulder, but there was an undeniable sense of strengthen to her. Once dark brown heir was starting to go grey in places, and there were a few lines around her eyes that hadn't been there that day on the beach. The dress she wore was dirty and torn, but she stood proud, back strait, refusing to allow the Covenant the small prize of her dignity.

At first the SPARTAN thought she was addressing him, but then one of the civilians stepped past. He was younger, twenty at most, with short reddish-brown hair. He walked with a slight limp, but refused to let it slow him down in the slightest.

"I'm here, mother." There was an unmistakable edge to his voice, but it was tempered by affection and compassion. "I was helping to load the injured."

"My little hero." the woman smiled softly, gently placing one hand on the side of his face, "Always thinking of others first."

"Mother..." There was a slightly pained edge to his voice as he slowly turned his head away.

If there had been any doubt before hand, they were dispelled when the SPARTAN saw the same pale blue eyes and faint freckles he saw every time he looked in the mirror. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, very different to the normal disassociation his enhanced senses and reaction-time left him with. It was just as well that he was clad in the most advanced suit of armour that the Naval Special Warfare Division could produce, because otherwise he would have had a hard time explaining the look of complete and utter shock on his face at finding himself standing only meters away from a ghost.

Like all the SPARTAN's, he had been selected due to his intelligence, his strength and his initiative. It couldn't have been much of a surprise to ONI that it hadn't taken them that long to hack into the secure server back on Reach to discover exactly what had happened to their families. He had been less interested than most, having accepted his assigned role as a protector of humanity, but there had been no escaping the news that, like the others, he had been replaced by a flash-clone so as not to arouse suspicion of the missing children. But the flash-clones were imperfect, flawed on the genetic level due to the limitations of the technology. Most had died within a year, eighteen months at most. The longest he had ever heard of one surviving had been a little over eight years, and even then, they had been confined to a wheelchair, and died soon after.

And yet here he was, standing on the world he had been born on, illuminated by the fire consuming the city that had once been his home, looking at the imperfect and supposedly doomed clone that had taken his place. Yes, there was the limp, but aside from that, there was no outward sign of any physical or mental impairment. Everything he knew of the science told him it should have been impossible, yet his eyes and ears told him different. One clone, out of the 150 created, had beaten all the odds and survived. Some quirk of genetics or some unknown environmental factor were the most obvious answer, but he knew instinctively that it was something else.

Luck.

The same luck that had served him well over the years, saved his life on more than one occasion, was also looking out for the young man now living the life that, had things been different, would have been his.

The clone looked at him for a moment, then turned away, completely unaware of the connection they shared.

"_Blue-One, this is Blue-Four._" A voice on the radio brought him back to reality, "_Blue-Two and Three are on-board, ready to come pick you up._"

"Rodger that, Blue-Four." The Spartan turned away, putting the past behind him, "Ready when you are."

**The End**

_John-117, the Master Chief, was born in 2511 and abducted by ONI in 2517  
__The Covenant glassed Eridanus II in 2530  
__All in-universe evidence points to any surviving family he had died at that time  
__Me, I like to think things were a little different..._


End file.
